Magang Steel shuts down more small blast furnaces

China's state-controlled Magang Steel will shut all its blast furnaces with less than 1,000m³ capacity by the end of this week to meet its capacity reduction target for 2018.

The company has already shut the No.9 blast furnace at its plant in Anhui, east China. The No. 13 blast furnace at its rail works facility will be shut on 27 April, along with a sintering machine. The company shut its two other sub-1,000m³ blast furnaces, the No.10 and No.11 units, in 2015.

Magang has set a target to eliminate 1mn t/yr of pig iron making capacity this year, which is likely to be met by the blast furnace shutdowns. The company plans to reduce its crude steel capacity by 1.28mn t/yr in 2018.

Magang shut down 620,000 t/yr of pig iron and 640,000 t/yr of crude steel capacity last year, after shutting 2.22mn t/yr of pig iron and 2.81mn t/yr of crude steel capacity in 2016.

China's large and medium-sized producers have been replacing smaller blast furnaces with larger blast furnaces — some with more than 5,000m³ capacity — over the past few years, as part of efforts to increase productivity and reduce emissions and energy consumption. China has set a target to reduce crude steel capacity by 30mn t/yr in 2018, which would achieve its goal of eliminating 150mn t/yr of crude steel capacity during the 13th five-year plan period from 2016-20.

The Magang group, which includes the company's flagship plant in Anhui and subsidiaries, aims to produce 18.3mn t of pig iron and 19.85mn t of crude steel this year, up from actual output of 18.17mn t and 19.71mn t respectively in 2017. Magang's finished steel production is almost equally split between flat and long products. The company operated its blast furnaces at around 94pc of their total 19.33mn t/yr capacity in 2017.